Doors may be made of various materials, depending on their usage (e.g. residential, commercial or industrial) and characteristics (e.g. size, weight, rigidity). A particular category of doors is made of metal, specifically of an assembly of metal profiles. For instance, aluminum may be used, since it is lighter than other metals like steel, and demonstrates different architectural properties. The metal profiles may have various shapes, to accommodate doors with various shapes and characteristics, and to allow the integration of other components in the door (e.g. windows). An important drawback of the usage of metal for making doors is that it has a high thermal conductivity. Thus, if a metallic door separates two environments with a significant difference of temperature, the door acts as a thermal conductor from the environment with the highest temperature to the environment with the lowest temperature.
One method to prevent a metal profile from acting as a thermal conductor consists in injecting a material having insulating properties in an inner structure of the metal profile, to act as a thermal break. Polyurethane is generally mentioned as a material having the required insulating properties, as well as sufficient adhesive properties to adhere to the inner structure of the metal profile. However, the introduction of the insulating material is not sufficient by itself to reduce the heat transfer as the thermal conductivity of the metallic envelope remains intact. Therefore creating an efficient thermal break in the inner structure of the metal profile generally implies to divide an originally single metallic structural member of the metal profile, into at least two resulting structural members after having injected the insulating material in the profile. The insulating material (such as polyurethane) having only limited adhesive properties and limited structural strength, the overall rigidity and resistance to deformation of the metal profile may be weakened. This limits the usage of such an insulating material to certain types of metal profiles and applications, where constraints related to rigidity and resistance to deformation are not an important issue.
Therefore, there is a need for a new metal profile with thermal break for making doors, which overcomes the aforementioned limitations.